One in ten UK homes cut asking price in July
One in ten UK homes registered a cut to the asking price in July, well above the five-year average, as sellers continue to adjust to a buyers market.
Average house prices rose by just 1.3 per cent in the year to July, below the 2.1 price growth recorded at the start of 2025, according to Zoopla’s latest House Price Index.
“There is plenty of demand for homes and more people are looking to move… [but] buyers also have much greater choice to choose from, especially across areas of southern England,” Richard Donnell, executive director at Zoopla, said.
“There is a clear link between buyer choice and price inflation and how long it is taking homes to sell,” he added.
While buyers have a greater choice of homes for sale than this time last year – up 10 per cent – affordability remains a constraint on buying power, especially across Southern England.
Northern regions have seen an average time to sell of 27 days in July, versus 39 days in the south.
“In a buyer’s market, where fewer buyers are looking to take the plunge, sensitively-priced homes will usually sell quicker, as sellers compete,” Tomer Aboody, director of specialist lender MT Finance, said.
“Since we have possibly seen the final base rate cut of the year, buyers may need to get used to the new ‘norm’ for mortgage rates for the foreseeable future,” he added.
Zoopla expects UK house price inflation to continue in a range of 1.5-2 per cent over the rest of the year, with signs that prices are firming in southern England but slowing across northern regions.
Nathan Emerson, CEO of Propertymark, said: “Stable house prices within the housing market are a welcome sign for groups such as first-time buyers, who can better take advantage of a period of steadiness.
“It remains important that sellers continue to have realistic price expectations and place their property on the market accordingly to help empower an efficient sales process.”
Property tax rumours to impact market activity
Rumours have been swirling in Westminster about a variety of property tax changes Rachel Reeves might introduce in this autumn’s – or further down the line – in an attempt to plug a £40bn gap in the nation’s finances while overhauling a complex system of levies and charges.
The Treasury is reportedly looking into a range of options, including a national property tax on the sale of homes, a local annual property tax based on property values, and an introduction of capital gains tax on the sale of homes over £1.5m.
“Unfortunately perhaps the government do not appreciate that even rumours of a new property tax can have a detrimental impact on housing market confidence and activity which we certainly witnessed ‘on the ground’ since the story broke last week,” Jeremy Leaf, north London estate agent and a former RICS chairman, said.
Any reform to the tax system would be, at best, politically challenging – as evidenced by the strong reaction to rumours of changes over the last few days.
Stuart Bailey, head of London super-prime sales at Knight Frank, said: “The autumn market is about to begin and this year will be shrouded by speculation of how to decipher the government’s messaging on property tax.
“Either way, sentiment impacts decision making and the longer a property takes to sell (if mis-priced for example), the bigger the risk of something going wrong, as buyers become ever more hesitant, and the risk of market slow down increases.”